Good morning and Happy Hump Day! If it's Wednesday, then it must be time for more flash fiction from the Wednesday Briefers! We're a group of authors who bring you our finest flash fiction every week, 500 to 1000 words, inspired by one of our prompts.
Who could be behind the bizarre film audition of one Caroline St. Clair? And to what purpose? Vinnie and Ethan, with the help of Troy and Brendan, decide to check out the actress' email and see if a clue lies there. See what's happening in this week's chapter of Bad Karma and the Family Plan. Don't forget to visit the other Briefers and see what's up with them. Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
“Doesn’t it stand to reason that she would want to
keep track of business emails as opposed to personal emails?” Ethan continued. We
all nodded our agreement.
“So maybe she set those emails aside, put them into
a separate folder, so she could find them easily?”
Told you my boy is brilliant.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Troy exclaimed. “I do
that myself. I make a folder for each project and then just move relevant
emails into that folder.” He moved the cursor over to the left side of the
screen where all her folders were listed in alphabetical order. The question
now was what would Miss Crazy Pants label the folder we were looking for, since
we had no idea what the title of the so-called film was.
Troy moved his cursor from folder to folder, and we
followed along with our eyes. She had a number of folders, some with people’s
names or film titles, other with the names of stores she shopped at or places
she had been. One folder was labeled Men
I would never sleep with. I refrained from commenting that was probably a
short list.
Occasionally, Troy opened up a folder to examine the
contents, if the name was too obscure to hint at anything, but those always
turned out to be nothing of interest. Some contained photos, often of herself.
I was surprised to see one with Gordon Daimler’s name, her ex, but I chalked
that up to her not bothering to delete it yet.
We were getting nowhere fast.
“Sorry, guys,” Troy apologized. “Guess this wasn’t
such a great idea after all.”
We all assured him that it wasn’t his fault, that it
could have been just the clue we needed to identify the mystery director.
Troy sighed. “Thanks. Should we just hang this up
and think of something else?” He glanced around at the three of us. Brendan
leaned down and kissed the top of Troy’s head, which produced a smile.
“Wait a minute,” Ethan said. “Um, let me ask you
something.”
“What’s that?” Troy said.
“Does Caroline like to read?”
“Read? Carrie?” Troy though for a moment. “Yeah, I’d
say she likes to read. Mostly romance novels. Why do you ask?”
“Well, no offense, but she doesn’t strike me as the
type to read a lot of classic literature, if you know what I mean.”
Troy chuckled. “I think that’s a fair assumption to
make, all things considered, but what does her taste in books have to do with
anything.”
Ethan pointed to the screen. “I noticed she has a
few folders named after authors, mostly women. It just struck me as odd that
she has one marked William Faulkner, that’s all.”
Now that he mentioned it that did seem rather odd.
Not that I was necessarily a fan of the man’s, although I did remember reading
at least one of his books in college. I was actually surprised the actress read
anything other than movie magazines, to be honest. I would never have pegged
her as one who would enjoy reading the classics.
Troy clicked on the folder. There were a few emails
inside, all from the same email address—BillyFaulkner987@gmail.com. Obviously
not the author himself, since I was pretty sure he was long dead.
“Is there a director named William Faulkner?” Ethan
asked. Good question.
“Not that I know of,” Troy replied. “Although I
don’t claim to know everyone, but you’d think I would at least have heard of
him before.”
“Maybe this is just one of her fans?” Brendan
suggested. “Or even a patron? Or a boyfriend?”
“Not a boyfriend. She tells me about all the men and
her life and she’s never mentioned him.” He scrolled up to the oldest email in
the chain, then whistled.
“What is it?” Brandon asked, anxiety evident in his
voice.
“This is the one,” he said. “The director we’ve been
looking for.”
to be continued
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